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BABEL   AND    BIBLE 


A  LECTURE  ON  THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF 

ASSYRIOLOGICAL  RESEARCH 

FOR  RELIGION 


DELIVERED   BEFORE  THE  GERMAN  EMPEROR 


bv   y 

DR.  FRIEDRICH  DELITZSCH 

PROFESSOR  OF  ASSVRIOLOGY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  BERLIN 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  GERMAN  BY 

THOMAS  J.   McCORMACK 


PROFUSELY  ILLUSTRATED 


CHICAGO 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

LONDON  AGENTS: 

Kegan  Paul,  Trench,  Trubner  &  Co.,  Ltd. 

1902 


Copyright  by 
The  Open  Court  Publishing  Co. 

IQ02 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 

TO  what  end  this  toil  and  trouble  in  distant,  inhospit- 
able, and  danger-ridden  lands?  Why  all  this  ex- 
pense in  ransacking  to  their  utmost  depths  the  rubbish 
heaps  of  forgotten  centuries,  where  we  know  neither 
treasures  of  gold  nor  of  silver  exist?  Why  this  zealous 
emulation  on  the  part  of  the  nations  to  secure  the  great- 
est possible  number  of  mounds  for  excavation?  And 
whence,  too,  that  constantly  increasing  interest,  that 
burning  enthusiasm,  born  of  generous  sacrifice,  now  be- 
ing bestowed  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  on  the  excava- 
tions of  Babylonia  and  Assyria? 

One  answer  echoes  to  all  these  questions, — one  an- 
swer, which,  if  not  absolutely  adequate,  is  yet  largely  the 
reason  and  consummation  of  it  all :  the  Bible.  A  magic 
halo,  woven  in  earliest  youth,  encircles  the  names  of 
Nineveh  and  Babylon,  an  irresistible  fascination  abides 
for  us  all  in  the  stories  of  Belshazzar  and  the  Wise  Men 
of  the  East.  The  long-lasting  dynasties  here  awakened 
to  new  life,  however  potent  for  history  and  civilisation 
they  may  have  been,  would  not  have  aroused  a  tithe  of 
their  present  interest,  did  they  not  number  among  them 
the  names  of  Amraphel,  Sennacherib,  and  Nebuchadnez- 
zar, with  whom  we  have  been  familiar  from  childhood. 


2  BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 

And  with  the  graven  memories  of  youth  is  associated 
the  deeper  longing  of  maturity, — the  longing,  so  charac- 
teristic of  our  age, — to  possess  a  philosophy  of  the  world 
and  of  life  that  will  satisfy  both  the  heart  and  the  head. 
And  this  again  leads  us  directly  to  the  Bible,  and  notably 
to  the  Old  Testament,  with  which  historically  our  mod- 
ern views  are  indissolubly  connected. 

The  minute,  exhaustive  scrutiny  to  which  untold 
numbers  of  Christian  scholars  in  Germany,  England,  and 
America — the  three  Bible-lands,  as  we  may  justly  call 
them — are  submitting  the  Old  Testament,  that  little 
library  of  books  of  most  varied  hue,  is  nothing  less  than 
astounding. 

Of  these  silent  intellectual  labors  the  world  has  as 
yet  taken  but  little  notice.  Yet  this  much  is  certain, 
that  when  the  sum-total  and  ultimate  upshot  of  the  new 
knowledge  shall  have  burst  the  barriers  of  the  scholar's 
study  and  entered  the  broad  path  of  life, — shall  have 
entered  our  churches,  schools,  and  homes, — the  life  of 
humanity  will  be  more  profoundly  stirred  and  be  made 
the  recipient  of  more  significant  and  enduring  progress 
than  it  has  by  all  the  discoveries  of  modern  physical  and 
natural  science  put  together.  So  far,  at  any  rate,  the 
conviction  has  steadily  and  universally  established  itself 
that  the  results  of  the  Babylonian  and  Assyrian  excava- 
tions are  destined  to  inaugurate  anew  epoch,  not  only  in 
our  intellectual  life,  but  especially  in  the  criticism  and 
comprehension  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  that  from  now 
till  all  futurity  the  names  of  Babel  and  Bible  will  remain 
inseparably  linked  together. 

How  times  have  changed !      There   was   David   and 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE.  3 

there  was  Solomon,  1000  years  before  Christ ;  and  Moses, 
1400  years  ;  and  Abraham  eight  centuries  prior.  And  of 
all  these  men  we  had  the  minutest  information !  It  was 
so  unique,  so  supernatural,  that  one  credulously  accepted 
along  with  it  stories  concerning  the  origin  of  the  world 
and  mankind.  The  very  greatest  minds  stood,  and  some 
of  them  still  stand  to-day,  under  the  puissant  thrall  of 
the  mystery  encompassing  the  First  Book  of  Moses.  But 
now  that  the  pyramids  have  opened  their  depths  and  the 
Assyrian  palaces  their  portals,  the  people  of  Israel,  with 
its  literature,  appears  as  the  youngest  member  only  of  a 
venerable  and  hoary  group  of  nations. 

The  Old  Testament  formed  a  world  by  itself  till  far 
into  the  last  century.  It  spoke  of  times  to  whose  latest 
limits  the  age  of  classical  antiquity  barely  reached,  and 
of  nations  that  have  met  either  with  none  or  with  the 
most  cursory  allusion  from  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans. 
The  Bible  was  the  sole  source  of  our  knowledge  of  the 
history  of  Hither  Asia  prior  to  550  B.  C,  and  since  its 
vision  extended  over  all  that  immense  quadrangle  lying 
between  the  Mediterranean  Sea  and  the  Persian  Gulf  and 
stretching  from  Mount  Ararat  to  Ethiopia,  it  naturally 
teemed  with  enigmas  that  might  otherwise  have  tarried 
till  eternity  for  their  solution.  But  now  the  walls  that 
formed  the  impenetrable  background  to  the  scenes  of  the 
Old  Testament  have  suddenly  fallen,  and  a  keen  invigo- 
rating air  and  a  flood  of  light  from  the  Orient  pervades 
and  irradiates  the  hoary  book, — animating  and  illuminat- 
ing it  the  more  as  Hebrew  antiquity  is  linked  together 
from  beginning  to  end  with  Babylonia  and  Assyria. 

The    American    excavations   at   Nippur   brought    to 


4  BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 

light  the  business  records  of  a  great  wholesale  house, 
Alurashu  &  Sons,  operating  in  that  city  in  the  reign  of 
Artaxerxes  (450  B.  C).  We  read  in  these  records  the 
names  of  many  Jewish  exiles  that  had  remained  in  Babel, 
as  Nathaniel,  Haggai,  and  Benjamin,  and  we  read  also 
of  a  canal  Kabar  in  connection  with  the  city  of  Nippur, 
which  is  the  original  of  the  canal  of  Kebar  rendered  fa- 
mous by  Bzekiel's  vision  and  situated  u  in  the  land  of 
the  Chaldasans"  (Ezekiel  i.  3) .  This  "grand  canal," 
for  such  the  name  means,  may  possibly  exist  to  this  very 
day. 


r:*r^"- 


Fig.  i.     Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  the  Home  of  Abraham  and  the 

Forefathers  of  Israel. 

(Ruins  of  el-Muqayyer,  pronounced  Mukayyer,  English  Mughcir.) 

Since  the  Babylonian  bricks  usually  bear  a  stamp 
containing  along  with  other  marks  the  name  of  the  city 
in  which  the  building  of  which  it  formed  a  part  was 
erected,  it  was  made  possible  for  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson  as 
early  as  the  year  1849  to  rediscover  the  much-sought-for 
city  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  the  home  of  Abraham  and  the 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE.  5 

ancestors  of  the  tribes  of  Israel  (Genesis  xi.  31  and  xv.  7) . 
The  discovery  was  made  in  the  gigantic  mound  of  ruins 
of  el-Muqajjar  on  the  right  bank  of  the  lower  Euphrates 
(see  Fig.  1) ,  which  is  now  the  storm-center  of  warring 
Arab  tribes.  The  certainty  of  the  discovery  has  been 
more  and  more  established. 

The  data  of  the  cuneiform  literature  shed  light  also 
on  geographical  matters :   formerly  the  site  of  the  city  of 


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Fig.  2.     Hittite   Ideographic 
Writing  from  Carchemish.1 


Fig.  3.   King  Hammurabi.  The  King 
Amraphel  of  the  Bible. 


Carchemish,  where  Nebuchadnezzar  in  605  B.C.  won  his 
great  battle  from  Pharaoh-necho  (Jeremiah  xlvi.  2)  was 
sought  for  at  random  on  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates,  but 
in  March,  1876,  the  English  Assyriologist  George  Smith, 
starting  from  Aleppo  and  following  the  river  downward 
from  Biredshik,  rode  directly  to  the  spot  where   from  the 

1  Confirming  the  discovery  of  the  site  of  Carchemish,  where  Nebuchednezzar 
defeated  Necho  in  605  B.  C. 


6  BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 

tenor  of  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  the  city  of  the  Hittite 
kings  must  have  lain,  and  at  once  and  unhesitatingly 
identified  the  vast  ruins  of  Dsherabis  there  situate,  with 
their  walls  and  palace-mounds,  more  extensive  than  Nin- 
eveh itself,  with  the  ancient  city  of  Carchemish, — a  con- 
clusion that  was  immediately  afterward  confirmed  by  the 
inscriptions  in  the  unique  ideographic  Hittite  script  that 
were  strewn  over  the  entire  site  of  the  ruins  (Fig.  2) . 

And  like  many  names  of  places,  so  also  many  of  the 
personalities  named  in  the  Bible,  have  received  new  light 
and  life.  The  book  of  the  prophet  Isaiah  (xx.  1)  men- 
tions an  Assyrian  king  by  the  name  of  Sargon,  who 
sent  his  marshal  against  Ashdod ;  and  when  in  1843  the 
French  consul  Emile  Botta  began  his  excavations  on  the 
mound  of  ruins  situated  not  far  from  Mosul,  and  thus  in- 
augurated archaeological  research  on  Mesopotamian  soil, 
the  first  Assyrian  palace  unearthed  was  the  palace  of  this 
same  Sargon,  the  conqueror  of  Samaria.  Nay,  on  one  of 
the  superb  alabaster  reliefs  with  which  the  walls  of  the 
palace  chambers  were  adorned,  the  very  person  of  this 
mighty  warrior  conversing  with  his  marshal  appears  be- 
fore our  eyes  (Fig.  4) . 

The  Book  of  Kings  (2  Kings  xviii.  14)  narrates  that 
King  Sennacherib  received  tribute  from  King  Hezekiah 
in  the  city  of  Lachish  in  southern  Palestine.  Now,  a  re- 
lief from  Sargon 's  palace  in  Nineveh  shows  the  great  As- 
syrian king  enthroned  before  his  tent  in  sight  of  a  con- 
quered city,  and  the  accompanying  inscription  reads: 
"Sennacherib,  the  king  of  the  universe,  king  of  Ashur, 
seated  himself  upon  his  throne  and  inspected  the  boot3'  of 
Lachish." 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE.  7 

And  again,  Sennacherib's  Babylonian  rival  Mero- 
dach-Baladan,  who  according  to  the  Bible  (2  Kings  xx. 
12)  sent  letters  and  a  present  to  King  Hezekiah,  is  shown 
us  in  his  own  likeness  by  a  magnificent  diorite  relief  now 


Fig.  4.     King  Sargon  II.  and  His  Marshal. 

in  Berlin,  where  before  the  king  is  the  lord-mayor  of  the 
city  of  Babylon,  to  whom  the  sovereign  in  his  gracious- 
ness  has  seen  fit  to  grant  large  tracts  of  land.     Even  the 


Fig.  5      King  Sennacherib  in  Gala  Costume. 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


contemporary  of  Abraham,  Amraphel,  the  great  king 
Hammurabi,  is  now  represented  by  a  likeness  (Fig.  3) . 
Thus,  all  the  men  that  made  the  history  of  the  world  for 
3000  long  years,  rise  to  life  again,  and  the  most  costly 


Fig.  6.     Seal  of  King  Darius. 

relics  have  been  bequeathed  to  us  by  them.  Here  is  the 
seal  of  King  Darius,  the  son  of  Hystaspes  (Fig.  6) ,  where 
the  king  is  represented  as  hunting  the  lion  under  the 
sublime  protection  of  Ahura  Mazda,  and  at  the  side  is  the 
trilingual  inscription :    "I  am  Darius,  the  great  king,"  — 


Fig.  7.     Seal  of  Sargon  I.     (Third  or  fourth  millennium  B.  C.) 

a  genuine  treasure  of  the  British  Museum.  Here  is  the 
state  seal  of  one  of  the  oldest  known  Bab3'lonian  rulers, 
Shargani-shar-ali,  or  Sargon  I.,  who  flourished  in  the 
third,  or  possibly  the  fourth,  millennium  before  Christ 


10 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


(Fig.  7).  This  king,  as  the  legend  runs,  knew  not  his 
own  father,  the  latter  having  met  his  death  prior  to  the 
birth  of  his  son  ;   and  since  the  father's  brother  cared  not 


Elamite  Jew  of  Lachish  Israelite 

Babylonian  merchant  Arab  horseman 

Fig.  8.     Racial  Types. 

for  the  widowed  mother,  great  affliction  attended  the  son's 
entrance   into   this   world;   we   read:    "In  Azupiran,   on 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE.  11 

the  banks  of  the  Euphrates,  she  bore  me  in  concealment ; 
she  placed  me  in  a  box  of  reeds,  sealed  my  door  with 
pitch,  and  cast  me  upon  the  river,  which  conveyed  me  on 
its  waves  to  Akki,  the  water-carrier.  He  took  me  up  in 
the  kindness  of  his  heart,  reared  me  as  his  own  child, 
made  me  his  gardener.  Then  Ishtar,  the  daughter  of  the 
King  of  Heaven,  showed  fondness  for  me  and  made  me 
king  over  men." 

And  not  only  kings  and  generals,  but  also  entire  na- 
tions, have  been  brought  to  life  again  by  these  discov- 
eries. If  we  compare  the  various  types  of  nationality 
engraved  on  the  monuments  of  Assyrian  art,  and,  taking 
for  example  two  types  that  we  know,  here  scrutinise  the 
picture  of  a  Jew  of  Lachish  (Fig.  8) ,  and  here  the  repre- 
sentation of  an  Israelite  of  the  time  of  Jehu,  we  are  not 
likely  to  be  wrong  in  our  conclusion  that  also  the  other 
national  types,  for  example  the  Elamite  chieftain,  the 
Arab  horseman,  and  the  Babylonian  merchant,  have  been 
depicted  and  reproduced  with  the  same  fidelity  and  exact- 
ness. Particularly  the  Assyrians,  who  sixty  years  ago 
were  supposed  to  have  perished  with  all  their  history  and 
civilisation  in  the  great  river  of  time,  have  been  made 
known  to  us  in  the  minutest  details  by  excavations  in 
Nineveh,  and  many  passages  in  the  prophetic  books  re- 
ceive gorgeous  illustration  from  our  discoveries.  Thus, 
Isaiah  describes  in  the  following  eloquent  language  the 
Assyrian  troops : 

"Behold,  the)' shall  come  with  speed  swiftly:  None  shall  be 
weary  nor  stumble  among  them;  none  shall  slumber  nor  sleep; 
neither  shall  the  girdle  of  their  loins  be  loosed,  nor  the  latchet  of 
their  shoes  be  broken  :  Whose  arrows  are  sharp,  and  all  their  bows 


12 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


Fig.  9.     Bronze  Gates  of  the  Palace  ok  Shalmaneser  II.     (At  Balawat.) 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


13 


bent,  their  horses'  hoofs  shall  be  counted  like  flint,  and  their  wheels 
like  a  whirlwind  :  Their  roaring  shall  be  like  a  lion,  yea,  they  shall 


Fig.  10.     Assyrians  Battering  a  Fortress. 


Fig.  ii.     Detail-Group  on  Bronze  Gate. 
Above  war-chariots  and  below  captives  led  before  the  king. 

roar,  and  lay  hold  of  the   prey,  and  shall  carry  it  away  safe,  and 
none  shall  deliver  it." — (Isaiah,  v.  27-29.) 


14 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


jV.'bfm       "  ■  '  r    -.  i.    .  , 

Fig.  12.    Procession  of  Female  Captives.     (Detail-group  on  bronze  gate. 


~^ 


— ;-  ■.■■>■.  ••-' 


r  a- 


1  ffij  ft    % 


M\ 


\  \  -  .    ! 


& 


Fig.  13.     Assyrian  Bowmen  and  Spearmen  Attacking  a  Hostile  Fortress. 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


15 


We  can  now  see  these  same  Assyrian  soldiers  arising 
from  their  camp  in  the  early  morn  and  dashing  their  bat- 
tering-rams against  the  enemy's  fortress  (Fig.  10)  ;   and 


Fig.  13a.      Grazing  Antelopes. 
(Idyllic  scene  picturing  the  intense  realism  of  Assyrian  art. 


Fig.  14.    Assyrian  Slingers. 


on  other  representations  (Figs.  11  and  12)  may  be  seen 
the  unfortunate  prisoners  conducted  the  way  from  which 


16 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


there  is  no  home-coming.  We  see  also  (Fig.  13)  the 
Assyrian  bowmen  and  spearmen  casting  their  weapons 
toward  the  hostile  fortress,  and  in  another  case  Assyrian 
warriors  storming  an  elevation  defended  by  hostile  arch- 
ers.    They  pull  themselves  upward  by  the  branches  of 


Fig.  15.     Head  of  Winged  Bull. 

Showing  details  of  Assyrian  mode  of  dressing  the  beard,  as  worn 

by  the  king  and  the  officers  of  the  army. 

the  trees,  or  clamber  to  the  summit  with  the  help  of 
staffs ;  whilst  others  drag  in  triumph  the  severed  heads 
of  their  enemies  into  the  valley. 

The  military  system  of  this  first  great  warrior-state 
of  the  world  is  shown  forth  to  us  in  a  vast  number  of  sim- 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


17 


Fig.  16.     The  King's  Chariot  in  a  Parade. 


Fig.  17.     Officers  of  Ashurbanipal  (Sardanapalus)  Entering  Court. 


18 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


ilar  representations  on  the  bronze  doors  of  Shalmaneser 
II.  (Fig.  9)  and  on  the  alabaster  reliefs  of  the  palaces  of 
Sargon  and  Sennacherib,  with  all  details  of  armament 
and  equipment  and  in  all  phases  of  development.  (See, 
for  example,  Fig.  14.) 


Fig.  18.     Pages  Carrying  the  Royal  Chariot. 

Again  we  have  the  portrait  of  an  Assyrian  officer  of 
Sargon 's  general  staff,  the  style  of  whose  beard  surpasses 
in  artistic  cut  anything  that  has  been  attempted  by  mod- 
ern officers.  (See,  for  example,  Fig.  15.)  Here  we  see 
the  officers  of  the  royal  household  making  their  cere- 
monial entry  (Fig.  17) ,  or  pages  carrying  the  royal  char- 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


19 


iot  (Fig.  18) ,  or  the  royal  throne  (Fig.  19) .  Many  beau- 
tiful reliefs  show  us  King  Sardanapalus  following  the 
chase,  especially  in  his  favorite  sport  of  hunting  lions,  of 
which  a  goodly  number  of  magnificent  specimens  were 


^— TO 


Fig.  19.     Pages  Carrying  the  Royal  Throne. 

constantly  kept  at  hand  in  parks  specially  reserved  for 
this  purpose.      (Figs.  20-25.) 

When  King  Saul  refused  to  suffer  young  David  to 
go  forth  to  do  battle  with  the  giant  Goliath,  David  re- 


20 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


minded  hiin  that  he  had  been  the  shepherd  of  his  father's 
flocks  and  that  when  a  lion  or  a  bear  had  come  and  taken 
a  lamb  from  his  flock,  he  had  gone  out  after  the  beast  and 


£ 

J'               K 

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maeB&!<e> 

H  n 

Fig.  20.    King  Sardanapalus  on  Horseback. 

had  smitten  it  and  wrested  from  it  its  prey,  and  that  if 
after  that  it  had  risen  against  him  he  had  caught  the  lion 


Fig.  21,     Sardanapalus  Hunting  the  Lion  on  Horseback. 

by  its  beard  and  slain  it.  Precisely  the  same  custom  pre- 
vailed in  Assyria;  and  the  reliefs  show  King  Sardana- 
palus doing  battle  with  the  lion,  not  only  on  horseback 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


21 


Fig.  22.     Hunting  the  Lion  from  a  Chariot. 


Fig.  23.     Sardanapalus  Bearding  the  Lion. 
(The  king  of  Ashur  measures  his  strength  with  the  king  of  the  desert.) 


Fig.  24.     Hunting  from  a  Boat. 


22 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


(Fig.  21)  and  from  his  chariot  (Fig.  22) ,  but  also  in  hand 
to  hand  combat  (Fig.  23) , — the  King  of  Ashur  measur- 
ing his  strength  with  the  king  of  the  desert. 


Fig   25.     Caged  Lion  Set  Free  for  the  Chase. 


Fig.  26.     Servants  Carrying  Fruit,  Hares,  Partridges,  Spitted 
Grasshoppers,  and  Onions. 

We  catch  glimpses  of  the  preparations  which  were 
made  for  the  royal  meal  (Figs.  26  and  27)  ;   we  see  the 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


23 


servants  bringing  hares,  partridges,  spitted  grasshoppers, 
a  plenitude  of  cakes  and  all  manner  of  fruits,  and  carry- 
ing fresh  branches  for  driving  away  the  flies.  We  are 
even  permitted  to  see  on  a  bas-relief  of  the  harem  (Fig. 
28)  the  king  and  queen  quaffing  costly  wine  in  a  leafy 
bower,  the  king  reclining  on  an  elevated  divan,  the  queen 
seated  opposite  him  on  a  chair,  and  clothed  in  rich  gar- 
ments.    Eunuchs  waft  cooling  breezes  toward  them  from 


Fig.  27.     Slaves  Carrying  Fruit 

their  fans,  while  soft  music  from  distant  sources  steals 
gently  upon  their  ears  (Fig.  29) .  This  is  the  only  queen 
of  whom  we  possess  a  picture.  Her  profile  as  it  appeared 
years  ago  in  a  better  state  of  preservation  has  been  saved 
for  posterity  by  a  sketch  made  in  1867  by  Lieutenant, 
afterwards  Colonel,  Billerbeck  (Fig.  30).  This  consort 
of  Sardanapalus  was  apparently  a  princess  of  Aryan  blood 
with  blond  hair. 

Many  other  things  of  interest  in  Assyrian  antiquity 


24 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


Fig.  28.     King  Sardanapalus  and  His  Consort. 


Fig.  29.     Attendants  Upon  King  Sardanapalus  and  His  Consort. 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


25 


have  also  been  restored  to  our  bodily  vision.  The  prophet 
Isaiah  (xlvi.  1)  mentions  the  procession  of  the  idols,  and 

in  Fig.  31  we  actually  wit-      

ness  one, — with  the  god- 
desses in  front,  and  behind, 
the  god  of  the  weather 
armed  with  hammer  and 
bolts ;  Assyrian  soldiers 
have  been  commanded  to 
transport  the  idols. 

We  see  in  Figure  32 
how  the  statues  of  the 
gigantic  stone  bulls  were 
transported,  and  catch  in 
this  way  all  manner  of 
glimpses  of  the  technical 
knowledge  of  the  Assy- 
rians.    But  our  greatest   and   most   constant  delight  is 


r**** 


Fig.  30.  Consort  of  Sardanapalus. 
(From  a  sketch  by  Colonel  Billerbeck.) 


Fig.  31.     Procession  of  Idols. 

derived  from  the  contemplation  of  their  noble  and  simple 
architecture,  as  it  is  exhibited  for  example  in  the  portal 


26 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


Fig.  32.     Transportation  of  the  Gigantic  Stone  Bulls. 


w^^%%^mJM^m^i^^^m^^wS^ 


Z£ 


~W^ 


Fig.  33.     Portal  of  the  Palace  of  Sargon. 
(Representing  the  noble  style  and  simplicity  of  the  Assyrian  architecture.) 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


27 


of  Sargon's  palace  excavated  by  Botta  (Fig.  33) ,  or  from 
the  magnificent  representations  of  animals,  replete  with 
the  most  startling  realism,  which  these  "Dutchmen  of 
antiquity"  created.  For  example,  the  idyllic  picture  of 
the  grazing  antelopes  (Fig.  13a ;  also  Fig.  34) ,  or  the 
dying  lioness  of  Nineveh,  so  justly  renowned  in  art 
(Fig.  35). 


Fig.  34.     Idyllic  Scenes  from  Assyrian  Art. 

The  excavations  on  Babylonian  soil  disclose  in  like 
manner  the  art  and  culture  of  the  mother  country  of  As- 
syrian civilisation  far  back  in  the  fourth  millennium, — a 
period  which  the  boldest  flights  of  fancy  would  otherwise 
have  scarcely  dreamt  of  recovering.  We  penetrate  lastly 
here  into  the  period  of  that  primitive  un-Indo-Germanic 
and  likewise  un-Semitic   nation  of  Sunierians,  who  are 


28 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


the  creators  and  originators  of  the  great  Babylonian  civ- 
ilisation, of  those  Sumerians  for  whom  the  number  60 
and  not  100  constituted  the  next  higher  unit  after  10. 


Fig.  35.    The  Dying  Lioness  of  Nineveh. 

That  Sumerian  Priest-King  whose  magnificentl}-  pre- 
served head  (Fig.  36)  the  Berlin  Museum  now  shelters, 


Fig.  36.     Head  of  a  Sumerian  Priest-King. 
(A  noble  type  from  the  dawn  of  human  history.) 

may  unquestionably  be  characterised  as  a  noble  represen- 
tative of  the  human  race  from  the  twilight  of  histor}^. 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE.  29 

But  gratifying  and  instructive  as  all  these  discov- 
eries may  be,  they  have  yet,  so  to  speak,  the  significance 
of  details  and  externalities  only,  and  are  easily  surpassed 
in  scope  and  importance  by  the  revelations  which  it  still 
remains  for  us  to  adduce. 

I  am  not  referring  now  to  the  highly  important  fact 
that  the  Babylonian  and  Assyrian  methods  of  reckoning 
time,  which  were  based  on  accurate  astronomical  observa- 
tions of  solar  eclipses,  etc.,  enabled  us  to  determine  the 
chronology  of  the  events  narrated  in  the  Book  of  Kings, 
— a  circumstance  that  was  doubly  gratifying  owing  to  the 
discovery  of  Robertson  Smith  and  Wellhausen  that  the 
chronology  of  the  Old  Testament  had  been  forcibly  made 
to  conform  to  a  system  of  sacred  numbers,  which  counted 
480  years  from  the  end  of  the  Exile  back  to  the  founding 
of  the  temple  of  Solomon,  and  again  480  years  backward 
from  that  date  to  the  Exodus  of  the  children  of  Israel 
from  Egypt  (1  Kings  vi.  l) . 

I  can  also  adduce  in  this  place  but  a  single,  and  that 
an  inconspicuous,  illustration  of  the  far-reaching  influence 
which  the  cuneiform  investigations  have  exercised  on  our 
understanding  of  the  text  of  the  Old  Testament, — a  result 
due  to  the  remarkably  close  affinity  between  the  Baby- 
lonian and  Hebrew  languages  and  to  the  enormous  com- 
pass of  the  Babylonian  literature.  We  read  in  Numbers 
vi.  24-27: 

"The  Lord  bless  thee,  and  keep  thee:  The  Lord 
make  his  face  to  shine  upon  thee,  and  be  gracious  unto 
thee:  The  Lord  lift  up  his  countenance  upon  thee,  and 
give  thee  peace." 

Countless  times  has  this  blessing  been  given  and  re- 


30  BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 

ceived !  But  it  was  never  understood  in  its  full  depth 
and  import  until  Babylonian  usage  informed  us  that  "to 
lift  up  one's  countenance  or  eyes  upon  or  to  another," 
was  a  form  of  speech  for  "bestowing  one's  love  upon  an- 
other, for  gazing  lovingly  and  feelingly  upon  another,  as 
a  bridegroom  upon  a  bride,  or  a  father  upon  a  son."  This 
ancient  and  glorious  benediction,  therefore,  invokes  on 
man  with  increasing  emphasis  God's  blessing  and  protec- 
tion, God's  benignant  and  gracious  consideration,  and 
lastly  God's  own  love, — finally  to  break  forth  into  that 
truly  beautiful  greeting  of  the  Orient,  "Peace  be  with 
thee!" 

Yet  the  greatest  and  most  unexpected  service  that 
Babel  ever  rendered  the  philological  interpretation  of  the 
Bible  must  yield  the  palm  for  wide-reaching  significance 
to  the  fact  that  here  on  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates  and 
Tigris  as  early  as  2250  B.C.  we  find  a  highly  organised 
constitutional  state.  Here  in  these  Babylonian  lowlands, 
having  an  area  not  greater  than  that  of  Italy,  yet  extra- 
ordinarily rich  by  nature  and  transformed  by  human  in- 
dustry into  a  veritable  hotbed  of  productiveness,  there 
existed  in  the  third  millennium  before  Christ  a  civilisa- 
tion comparable  in  many  respects  with  our  own. 

It  was  Hammurabi,  the  Amraphel  of  the  Bible,  that 
ultimately  succeeded  in  expelling  the  Elamites,  the  her- 
editary enemy  of  Babylon,  from  the  country,  and  in  weld- 
ing North  and  South  together  into  a  single  union,  with 
Babylon  as  political  and  religious  center.  His  first  solici- 
tude was  to  establish  a  uniform  system  of  law  over  the 
entire  country,  and  he  accordingly  promulgated  a  juridic 
code  that  determined  in  the  minutest  manner  the  rights 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE  31 

and  privileges  of  his  citizens.  The  relations  of  master, 
slave,  and  hireling,  of  merchant  and  apprentice,  of  land- 
lord and  tenant,  are  here  precisely  fixed.  There  is  a  law, 
for  example,  that  a  clerk  who  has  delivered  money  to  his 
superior  for  goods  that  he  has  sold  shall  obtain  a  receipt 
for  the  transaction.  Reductions  in  rent  are  provided  for 
in  case  of  damage  by  storms  and  wild  beasts.  The  fish- 
ing rights  of  boroughs  along  the  canals  are  precisely  de- 
fined. And  so  on.  Babylon  is  the  seat  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  to  which  all  knotty  and  disputed  points  of  law  are 
submitted.  Every  able-bodied  man  is  subject  to  military 
duty.  But  Hammurabi  softened  by  many  decisions  the 
severity  of  the  recruiting  laws  ;  for  example,  in  the  inter- 
ests of  stock-raising  he  exempted  herdsmen  from  military 
service,  and  he  also  conferred  special  privileges  on  an- 
cient priestly  families. 

We  read  of  money  having  been  coined  in  Babylon, 
and  the  distinctively  cursive  character  of  their  script 
points  to  a  very  extensive  use  of  writing.  Many  letters 
of  this  ancient  period  have  been  preserved.  We  read,  for 
example,  the  letter  of  a  wife  to  her  absent  husband,  ask- 
ing his  advice  on  some  trivial  matter ;  the  epistle  of  a 
son  to  his  father,  announcing  that  a  certain  person  has 
unspeakably  offended  him,  and  that  his  impulse  is  to  give 
the  miscreant  a  severe  drubbing,  but  that  he  prefers  to 
have  the  advice  of  his  father  on  the  matter ;  and  another, 
still  stranger  one,  in  which  a  son  implores  his  father  to 
send  him  at  once  the  money  that  he  has  so  long  promised 
him,  fortifying  his  request  with  the  contumelious  insin- 
uation that  in  that  event  only  will  he  feel  justified  in  re- 
suming his  prayers  for  his  father's   salvation.     Every- 


32 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


C* 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


33 


thing,  in  fact,  points  to  a  thoroughly  organised  postal 
system  throughout  the  empire,  and  this  conclusion  is 
corroborated  by  the  distinctest  evidence  that  there  existed 
causeways  and  canals  in  Babylonia  which  extended  far 
beyond  its  boundaries  and  which  were  kept  in  perfect 
condition. 

Commerce  and  industry,  stock-raising  and  agricul- 
ture, flourished  here  in  an  eminent  degree,  while  science, 


Fig.  38.    Palace  of  King  Sargon  at  Khorsabad. 
(Restored  by  Victor  Place.) 

geometry,  mathematics,  and  notably  astronomy,  attained 
a  height  of  development  that  has  repeatedly  evoked  the 
admiration  of  modern  scientists.  Certain^  not  Paris, 
and  at  most  Rome,  can  bear  comparison  with  Babylon  in 
the  extent  of  influence  which  it  exercised  upon  the  world 
for  2000  years. 

Bitter  testimony  do  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testa- 


34 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


nient  bear  to  the  surpassing  splendor  and  unconquerable 
might  of  the  Babylon  of  Nebuchadnezzar  (see  Figs.  37, 
38,  39,  40,  and  41) .  "  Babylon,"  cries  Jeremiah,  "hath 
been  a  golden  cup  in  Yahveh's  hand,  that  made  all  the 
earth  drunken"  (Jer.  li.  7)  ;  and  the  Revelation  of  St. 
John  still  quivers  with  the  detested  memory  of  Babel  the 
Great,  the  gay  voluptuous  city,  the  wealth-teeming  me- 
tropolis of  commerce  and  art,  the  mother  of  harlots  and 


Fig.  39.     Palace  of  Sennacherib  at  Nineveh  (Restored). 
(After  Ferguson.) 

of  all  abominations  of  the  earth.  Yet  so  far  back  as  the 
beginning  of  the  third  millennium  before  Christ  Babylon 
had  been  this  great  focus  of  culture,  science,  and  litera- 
ture, the  "brain"  of  Hither  Asia,  the  power  that  dom- 
inated the  world. 

In  the  winter  of  1887,  a  band  of  Egyptian  fellahs 
who  were  excavating  in  the  ruins  of  the  palaces  of  Amen- 
ophis  IV.  at  El-Amarna,  between  Thebes  and  Memphis, 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE.  35 

discovered  about  300  clay  tablets  of  many  forms  and 
sizes.  These  tablets  were  found  to  contain  the  corre- 
spondence of  Babylonian,  Assyrian,  and  Mesopotamian 
kings  with  the  Pharaohs  Amenophis  III.  and  IV.,  and, 
most  important  of  all,  the  letters  of  the  Egyptian  gover- 
nors of  the  great  Canaanite  cities  of  Tyre,  Sidon,  Akko, 
Askalon,  etc.,  to  the  Egyptian  court;  and  the  museum 
at  Berlin  is  so  fortunate  as  to  possess  the  only  letters  that 


UC 


>r 


Fig.  40.    Chariot  and  Attendants  of  Sennacherib  with  Castle 
on  a  Mountain.     (After  Layard.) 

came  from  Jerusalem,— letters  written  before  the  entrance 
of  the  Israelites  into  the  promised  land.  Like  a  powerful 
searchlight,  these  clay  tablets  of  El-Amarna  shed  a  flood 
of  dazzling  effulgence  upon  the  profound  obscurity  which 
shrouded  the  political  and  cultural  conditions  of  the  period 
from  1500  to  1400  B.C.;  and  the  mere  fact  that  the  mag- 
nates of  Canaan,  nay,  even  of  Cyprus,  made  use  of  the 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE.  37 

Babylonian  language  and  script,  and  like  the  Babylonians 
wrote  on  clay  tablets,  the  mere  fact  that  the  Bab3'lonian 
language  was  the  official  language  of  diplomatic  inter- 
course from  the  Euphrates  to  the  Nile,  is  in  itself  indis- 
putable proof  of  the  omnipotent  influence  which  Baby- 
lonian civilisation  and  literature  exercised  on  the  world 
from  the  year  2200  until  1400  B.C. 

When  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel  invaded  the  land  of 
Canaan,  they  entered  a  country  which  belonged  absolutely 
to  the  domain  of  Babylonian  civilisation.  It  is  an  unim- 
portant but  characteristic  feature  of  the  prevailing  state 
of  things  that  a  Babylonish  garment  excited  the  avarice  of 
Achan  when  the  first  Canaanite  cit}^  Jericho,  was  stormed 
and  plundered  (Joshua  vii.  21) .  And  not  only  the  in- 
dustry, but  also  the  commerce  and  law,  the  customs  and 
the  science  of  Babylon  were  the  standards  of  the  land. 
Knowing  this,  we  comprehend  at  once  why  the  systems 
of  measures,  weights,  and  coins  used  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  the  external  form  of  their  laws  ("if  a  man  do 
this  or  that,  he  shall  be  punished  after  this  manner  or 
that")  are  Babylonian  throughout.  So  also  the  sacer- 
dotal customs  and  the  methods  of  offering  sacrifices  were 
profoundly  influenced  by  Babylonian  models ;  and  it  is  a 
remarkable  fact  that  Israelitic  traditions  are  altogether  at 
variance  in  their  accounts  of  the  origin  of  the  Sabbath, — 
as  will  be  rendered  apparent  by  a  comparison  of  Exodus 
xx.  11  and  Deuteronomy  v.  15.  But  now  the  matter  is 
clearer. 

The  Babylonians  also  had  their  Sabbath  day  {ska- 
battu) ,  and  a  calendar  of  feasts  and  sacrifices  has  been 
unearthed   according  to  which  the  7th,   14th,  21st,  and 


38  BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 

28th  days  of  every  month  were  set  apart  as  days  on  which 
no  work  should  be  done,  on  which  the  king  should  not 
change  his  robes,  nor  mount  his  chariot,  nor  offer  sacri- 
fices, nor  render  legal  decisions,  nor  eat  of  boiled  or 
roasted  meats,  on  which  not  even  a  physician  should  lay 
hands  on  the  sick.  Now  this  setting  apart  of  the  sev- 
enth day  for  the  propitiation  of  the  gods  is  really  under- 
stood from  the  Babylonian  point  of  view,  and  there  can 
therefore  be  scarcely  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  that  in  the 
last  resort  we  are  indebted  to  this  ancient  nation  on  the 
banks  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris  for  the  plenitude 
of  blessings  that  flows  from  our  day  of  Sabbath  or  Sun- 
day rest. 

And  more  still.  There  is  a  priceless  treasure  in  the 
Berlin  Museum,  a  tablet  of  clay,  containing  the  Babylo- 
nian legend  of  how  it  came  to  pass  that  the  first  man  for- 
feited the  boon  of  immortality.  The  place  where  this 
tablet  was  found,  namely  El-Amarna  in  Egypt,  and  the 
numerous  dots  scattered  over  it  in  red  Egyptian  ink, 
showing  the  pains  that  some  Eg}^ptian  scholar  had  taken 
to  master  the  intricacies  of  the  foreign  text,  are  ocular 
evidence  of  the  zeal  with  which  the  productions  of  Baby- 
lonian literature  were  cultivated  over  the  vast  extent  of 
territory  which  stretched  from  Canaan  to  the  land  of  the 
Pharaohs.  Shall  we  be  astonished,  therefore,  to  learn 
that  entire  cycles  of  Biblical  stories  have  been  suddenly 
brought  to  light  from  the  darkness  of  the  Babylonian 
treasure-heaps,  in  much  purer  and  more  primitive  form 
than  they  exist  in  the  Bible  itself? 

The  Babylonians  divided  their  history  into  two  great 
periods:  that  before  the  Flood  and  that  after  the  Flood. 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE.  39 

Babylonia  was  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word  the  land  of 
deluges.  Like  all  alluvial  lowlands  bordering  on  great 
streams  that  flow  into  the  sea,  it  was  exposed  to  floods  of 
the  direst  and  most  unique  character.  It  is  the  home  of 
the  cyclone  or  tornado,  with  its  accompaniment  of  earth- 
quake and  cloudburst.  Only  twenty-five  years  ago,  in 
the  year  1876,  a  tornado  of  this  character  gathered  in  the 
Bay  of  Bengal,  and  amid  the  crashing  of  thunder  and 
with  a  violence  so  terrific  as  to  dismast  ships  distant 
nearly  two  hundred  miles,  approached  the  delta  of  the 
Ganges,  met  the  ebbing  tide,  and  engulfing  it  in  its  own 
titanic  tidal-wave,  hurled  oceans  of  water  over  an  area  of 
141  square  leagues  to  a  depth  of  45  feet,  drowning  215,000 
human  beings,  and  only  losing  its  strength  as  it  broke 
against  the  highlands  that  lay  beyond.  Now  the  credit 
belongs  to  the  celebrated  Viennese  geologist,  Eduard 
Suess,  for  having  discovered  the  exact  and  detailed  de- 
scription of  just  such  a  tornado  in  the  Babylonian  story 
of  the  Flood  inscribed  on  this  tablet  (Fig.  42)  from  the 
library  of  Sardanapalus  at  Nineveh  and  committed  to 
writing  2000  years  before  Christ.  The  sea  plays  the  prin- 
cipal part  in  this  flood,  and  therefore  the  ark  of  the  Baby- 
lonian Noah,  Xisuthros,  is  cast  back  upon  a  spur  of  the 
Armenio-Medean  mountains ;  but  in  other  respects  it  is 
the  same  old  story  of  the  Flood,  so  familiar  to  us  all. 

Xisuthros  receives  from  the  god  of  the  watery  deep 
the  command  to  build  a  ship  of  certain  dimensions,  to 
coat  it  thoroughly  with  pitch,  and  to  put  on  board  of  it 
his  entire  family  together  with  the  seeds  of  all  living 
things.  The  ship  is  entered,  its  doors  are  closed,  it  is 
cast   adrift  upon  the   devastating  waves,    and   is   finally 


40 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


stranded  upon  a  mountain  bearing  the  name  of  Nizir. 
Then  follows  the  famous  passage  :  "  On  the  seventh  day 
I  took  forth  a  dove  and  released  it ;  the  dove  flew  hither 
and  thither,  but  finding  no  resting-place  returned."  We 
then  read  that  a  swallow  was  sent  forth ;  it  also  found  no 
resting-place  and  returned.  Finally  a  raven  was  sent 
forth,  which,  noticing  that  the  waters  had  subsided,  did 


Fig.  42.     Tablet  Containing  Babylonian  Story  of  the  Flood. 

not  return.  Xisuthros  then  abandons  his  ship  and  offers 
sacrifices  on  the  summit  of  the  mountain.  The  sweet 
odor  was  scented  by  the  gods,  etc.,  etc. 

This  entire  story,  precisely  as  it  is  here  written, 
afterwards  travelled  to  Canaan,  but  owing  to  the  totally 
different  conformation  of  the  land  in  this  latter  country, 
it  was  forgotten  that  the  sea  had  played  the  principal  role, 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE.  41 

and  we  accordingly  find  in  the  Bible  two  distinct  versions 
of  the  Flood,  which  are  not  only  absolutely  impossible 
from  the  point  of  view  of  natural  science,  but  are  also  at 
diametrical  variance  with  each  other,  the  one  giving  as 
the  duration  of  the  Flood  a  period  of  365  days  and  the 
other  a  period  of  40  +  (3x7) ,  or  61  days.  We  owe  the 
discovery  that  two  fundamentally  different  versions  of  the 
story  of  the  Flood  were  welded  together  into  one  in  the 
Bible,  to  the  orthodox  Catholic  bod}^  surgeon  of  Louis 
XV.,  Jean  Astruc,  who,  in  the  year  1753  first  submitted, 
as  Goethe  expresses  it,  the  books  of  Moses  "to  the  probe 
and  knife,"  and  thus  became  the  founder  of  Pentateuch 
criticism,  or  that  branch  of  inquiry  which  seeks  to  in- 
crease and  clarify  our  knowledge  of  the  many  diversified 
sources  of  which  the  Five  Books  of  Moses  are  composed. 

These  are  facts  which  from  the  point  of  view  of  sci- 
ence are  as  immutable  as  rock,  however  stubbornly  people 
on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  may  close  their  eyes  to 
them.  When  we  remember  that  minds  of  the  stamp  of 
Luther  and  Melancthon  once  contemptuously  rejected  the 
Copernican  system  of  astronomy,  we  may  be  certain  that 
the  results  of  the  scientific  criticism  of  the  Pentateuch 
will  tarry  long  for  recognition.  Yet  it  is  just  as  certain 
that  some  day  they  will  be  openly  admitted. 

The  ten  Babylonian  kings  who  reigned  before  the 
Flood  have  also  been  accepted  in  the  Bible  as  the  ten 
antediluvian  patriarchs,  and  the  agreement  is  perfect  in 
all  details. 

In  addition  to  the  Babylonian  Gilgamesh  epic,  the 
eleventh  tablet  of  which  contains  the  story  of  the  Flood, 


42  BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 

we  possess  another  beautiful  Babylonian  poem,  the  story 
of  the  Creation. 

In  the  primordial  beginning  of  things,  according  to 
this  epic,  down  in  the  gloomy  chaos,  surged  and  raged 
the  primeval  waters,  the  name  of  which  was  Tiamat. 
When  the  gods  declared  their  intention  of  forming  an 
orderly  cosmos  out  of  the  chaos,  Tiamat  arose  (usually 
represented  as  a  dragon,  but  also  as  a  seven-headed  ser- 
pent) ,  and  made  ready  for  combat  to  the  death.  Monsters 
of  all  descriptions  she  spawned  from  her  mighty  depths, 
especially  gigantic  venom-blown  serpents ;  and  in  their 
company  she  set  forth  bellowing  and  snorting  to  her  con- 
flict with  the  gods.  The  Celestials  quaked  with  terror 
when  they  saw  their  direful  foe.  The  god  Marduk  alone, 
the  god  of  light,  of  dawn,  and  of  the  vernal  sun,  came 
forward  to  do  battle  with  her,  his  sole  stipulation  being 
that  sovereign  rank  among  the  gods  should  be  accorded 
him. 

Then  follows  a  splendid  scene.  First  the  god  Mar- 
duk fastened  a  gigantic  net  to  the  East  and  the  South,  to 
the  North  and  the  West,  lest  any  part  of  Tiamat  should 
escape.  He  then  mounted  in  shining  armor  and  radiant 
with  majesty  his  celestial  chariot,  which  was  drawn  by 
four  spirited  steeds,  the  admired  cynosure  of  the  eyes  of 
all  the  surrounding  gods.  Straightway  he  made  for  the 
dragon  and  her  dread  embattled  train,  sending  forth  his 
challenge  for  the  contest.  Then  Tiamat  shrieked  loudly 
and  fiercely,  till  her  deepmost  foundations  trembled  and 
shook.  She  opened  her  maw  to  its  uttermost,  but  before 
she  could  shut  her  lips  Marduk  made  enter  into  her  belly 
the  evil  hurricane.     He  seized  his  lance  and  pierced  her 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE.  43 

heart.  He  cast  her  carcass  down  and  placed  himself  upon 
it,  whilst  her  helpers  were  taken  captive  and  placed  in 
close  confinement.  Thereupon  Marduk  cut  Tiamat  in 
twain,  as  cleanly  as  one  would  sever  a  fish,  and  of  the 
one  half  he  made  the  roof  of  heaven  and  of  the  other  he 
made  the  earth  ;  and  the  heaven  he  inlaid  with  the  moon, 
and  the  sun,  and  the  stars,  and  the  earth  he  covered  with 
plants  and  animals,  until  finally  the  first  man  and  the 
first  woman,  made  of  mingled  clay  and  celestial  blood, 
came  forth  from  the  hand  of  their  creator. 

Since  Marduk  was  the  city-god  of  Babel,  it  is  quite 
intelligible  that  this  story  found  widespread  diffusion  in 
Canaan.  Nay,  the  poets  and  prophets  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment went  so  far  as  to  attribute  directly  to  Yahveh  the 
heroic  deeds  of  Marduk,  and  to  extol  him  as  the  cham- 
pion that  broke  the  head  of  the  dragons  in  the  water 
(Psalms  lxxiv.  13  et  seq. ;  lxxxix.  10) ,  and  under  whom 
the  helpers  of  the  dragon  stooped  (Job  ix.  13) . 
Passages  like  the  following  from  Isaiah  li.  9: 
"Awake,  awake,  put  on  strength,  O  arm  of  Yahveh;  awake, 
as  in  the  days  of  old,  in  the  generations  of  ancient  times.  Art  thou 
not  it  that  hath  cut  Rahab  in  pieces  and  pierced  the  dragon?" 

or  passages  like  that  from  Job  xxvi.  12  : 

"He  divideth  the  sea  with  his  power,  and  by  his  understand- 
ing he  smiteth  the  dragon," 

read  like  explanatory  comments  on  the  little  image  which 
our  expedition  found  representing  the  god  Marduk,  of 
the  powerful  arm,  the  far-seeing  eye,  and  the  far-hearing 
ear,  the  symbol  of  intelligence  clad  in  majestic  glory, 
with  the  conquered  dragon  of  the  primeval  waters  at  his 
feet  (Fig.  44) . 


fife?  «|Tlhf«  VU^ 


JiBllsg 


Fig    44.     Marduk  with  the  Conquered 

Dragon  of  the  Primeval  Waters 

at  His  Feet. 


lafVgr1 ^v.T'i    •'       'i  •, 


Fig.  43.   The  "Black  Obelisk."  ' 
(Lenormant,  V.,  p.  329.) 


Fig.  45.   Conical  Piece  of  Clay  from  a 
Babylonian  Coffin. 


1  Erected  by  Shalmaneser  II.  (860-825  B.C.)  to  record  the  victories  of  his  31  military  expeditions. 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE.  45 

The  priestly  author  that  wrote  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis  took  infinite  pains  to  eliminate  all  mythological 
features  from  his  story  of  the  creation  of  the  world.  But 
since  his  story  begins  with  the  gloomy,  watery  chaos 
which  bears  precisely  the  same  name  as  Tiamat,  namely 
Tehom,  and  since  this  chaos  was  first  divided  by  the 
light,  and  heaven  and  the  earth  appeared  afterwards,  and 
heaven  was  set  with  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  stars, 
and  the  earth  was  covered  with  flowers  and  with  animals, 
and  finally  the  first  man  and  woman  went  forth  from  the 
hand  of  God,  it  will  be  seen  that  there  is  a  very  close  re- 
lationship between  the  Biblical  and  the  Babylonian  story 
of  the  creation  of  the  world ;  and  it  will  be  obvious  at  the 
same  time  how  absolutely  futile  all  attempts  are  and  will 
forever  remain,  to  harmonise  our  Biblical  story  of  the 
creation  with  the  results  of  natural  science. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  echoes  of  this  same  con- 
flict between  Marduk  and  Tiamat  may  still  be  heard  in 
the  Revelation  of  St.  John  the  Divine,  in  the  battle  be- 
tween the  archangel  Michael  and  the  beast  of  the  deep, 
"that  old  serpent  called  the  Devil  and  Satan."  This  en- 
tire group  of  stories,  which  is  also  represented  in  the  tale 
of  St.  George  and  the  dragon,  brought  by  the  crusaders 
from  the  East,  is  distinctively  Babylonian  in  character; 
inasmuch  as  many,  many  hundred  years  before  the  Apoc- 
alypse and  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  were  written,  we 
find  this  conflict  between  the  powers  of  light  and  the 
powers  of  darkness  renewed  at  the  break  of  every  day 
and  the  beginning  of  every  spring,  depicted  in  gorgeous 
relief  on  the  walls  of  the  Assyrian  palaces  (Fig.  46) . 

But   the   discovery   of   this    relationship    is    of   still 


46 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


greater  importance.  The  commandment  not  to  do  unto 
one's  neighbor  what  one  would  not  like  to  have  done  unto 
oneself  is  indelibly  engraven  on  every  human  heart. 
"Thou  shalt  not  shed  the  blood  of  thy  neighbor,"  "thou 
shalt  not  draw  near  thy  neighbor's  wife,"  "thou  shalt 
not  take  unto  thyself  the  garment  of  thy  neighbor," — all 
these  fundamental   postulates   of  the  human  instinct  of 


Fig.  46.     Battle  Between  Marduk  and  Tiamat,  the  Powers  of  Light 

and  the  Powers  of  Darkness. 

(Ancient  Assyrian  bas-relief  now  in  the  British  Museum.) 

self-preservation  are  read  in  the  Babylonian  records  in 
precise^  the  same  order  as  they  are  given  in  the  fifth, 
sixth  and  seventh  commandments  of  the  Old  Testament. 
But  man  is  also  a  social  being,  and  for  this  reason  the 
commandments  of  humanity,  charity,  mercy,  and  love, 
also  form  an  inalienable  patrimony  of  the  human  race. 
Therefore  when  a  Babylonian  Magus  was  called  to  a  man 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE.  47 

who  was  ill  and  began  to  inquire  what  sin  had  stretched 
him  on  the  sick-bed,  he  did  not  rest  satisfied  with  the  re- 
cital of  the  greater  sins  of  commission  like  murder  and 
robbery,  but  he  asked  :  "Hath  this  man  refused  to  clothe 
one  that  was  naked  ;  or  hath  he  refused  light  to  one  that 
was  imprisoned?"  The  Babylonian  lays  great  stress, 
too,  on  the  higher  forms  of  human  morality;  speaking 
the  truth  and  keeping  one's  word  were  sacred  duties  with 
them,  while  to  say  "yes"  with  the  lips  and  "no"  with 
the  heart  was  a  punishable  transgression.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  infringements  of  these  commandments  were 
regarded  by  the  Babylonians  precisely  as  they  were  by 
the  Hebrews,  as  sins,  for  the  Babylonians  also  in  all  their 
doings  considered  themselves  as  dependent  on  the  gods. 
But  it  is  certainly  more  remarkable  that  they  also  con- 
ceived all  human  afflictions,  particularly  sickness  and 
death,  as  a  punishment  for  sins.  In  Babel  as  in  the  Bible, 
the  notion  of  sin  dominates  everything.  Under  these 
circumstances  it  is  intelligible  that  Babylonian  thinkers 
also  pondered  deeply  over  the  problem  of  how  it  was  pos- 
sible that  a  creature  that  had  been  created  in  the  image 
of  God  and  was  God's  own  handiwork  could  have  fallen  a 
victim  to  sin  and  to  death ;  and  the  Bible  has  a  profound 
and  beautiful  story  of  the  temptation  of  woman  by  the 
serpent. 

The  serpent  again?  That  has  an  unmistakably  Baby- 
lonian ring.  It  was  doubtless  the  same  serpent,  the  pri- 
mordial foe  of  the  gods,  that  sought  to  revenge  itself  on 
the  gods  of  light  by  seeking  to  estrange  from  them  their 
noblest  creature?  Or  was  it  the  serpent  of  which  it  is 
once  said  that  it  ' '  destroyed  the  dwelling-place  of  life  ' '  ? 


48 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


The  question  as  to  the  origin  of  the  Biblical  story  of  the 
Fall  of  Man  is  of  the  utmost  importance  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  history  of  religion  as  well  as  from  that  of 
the  theology  of  the  New  Testament,  which,  as  is  well 
known,  contrasts  with  the  first  Adam  by  whom  sin  and 
death  were  brought  into  the  world,  a  second  Adam. 

May  I  lift  the  veil,  may  I  point  to  an  old  Babylonian 
cylinder-seal  (Fig.  47) ,  on  which  may  be  seen  in  the 
center  a  tree  bearing  pendent  fruits,  to  the  right  a  man, 

distinguishable  b3r  his 
horns,  which  are  the  sym- 
bol of  strength,  to  the  left 
a  woman,  both  with  their 
hands  outstretched  to- 
ward the  fruit,  and  be- 
_  hind  the  woman  the  ser- 

Fig.  47.     Sacred  Tree  and  Serpent. 
A  Babylonian  conception  of  the  Fall  of  Man.    pent?       Is    it  UOt  the  very 

(AfterSmith)  acme    of    likelihood    that 

there  is  some  connection  between  this  old  Babylonian 
picture  and  the  Biblical  tale  of  the  Fall  of  Man? 

Man  dies,  and  while  his  body  is  buried  in  the  grave 
his  departed  soul  descends  into  ' '  the  land  of  no  return- 
ing," into  Sheol,  into  Hades,  into  the  gloonry,  dust- 
impregnated  locality,  where  the  shades  flutter  around 
like  birds  and  lead  a  joyless  and  sodden  existence.  Dust 
covers  the  doors  and  the  bolts,  and  everything  in  which 
the  heart  of  man  took  delight  is  mouldy  and  dust-laden. 

With  such  a  disconsolate  outlook  it  is  intelligible 
that  both  Hebrews  and  Babylonians  looked  upon  length 
of  days  here  below  as  the  sovereign  boon  ;  and  on  every 
single  one  of  the  great  flag-stones  with  which  the  holy 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE.  49 

street  of  Marduk  in  Babylon  was  paved,  and  which  was 
discovered  by  the  German  expedition  to  that  city,  there 
was  engraved  a  prayer  of  Nebuchadnezzar  which  closed 
with  the  words:  "O,  Lord  Marduk,  grant  to  us  great 
length  of  days  !  ' ' 

But  strange  to  say,  the  Babylonian  conception  of  the 
Underworld  is  one  degree  pleasanter  than  that  of  the  Old 
Testament.  On  the  twelfth  tablet  of  the  Gilgamesh  epic, 
the  Babylonian  Underworld  is  described  in  the  minutest 
details.  We  read  there  of  a  space  situated  beneath  the 
Underworld  which  was  apparently  reserved  for  souls  of 
unusual  piety  and  ' '  in  which  they  reposed  on  beds  of 
ease  and  quaffed  clear  water." 

Many  Babylonian  coffins  have  been  found  in  Warka, 
Nippur,  and  Babel,  but  the  Berlin  Museum  recently  ac- 
quired a  small  conical  piece  of  clay  (Fig.  45) ,  which  has 
evidently  been  taken  from  a  coffin  of  this  kind,  and  the 
inscription  of  which  plaintively  requests  that  whosoever 
may  find  the  coffin  shall  leave  it  undisturbed  and  unin- 
jured in  its  original  resting-place  ;  and  the  text  concludes 
with  words  of  blessing  for  him  who  performs  so  kind  a 
deed  :  "  May  his  name  be  blessed  in  the  Upperworld,  and 
in  the  Underworld  may  his  departed  spirit  drink  of  clear 
water." 

In  Sheol,  therefore,  there  exists  a  place  for  particu- 
larly pious  souls,  where  they  repose  on  beds  of  ease  and 
quaff  clear  water.  The  remainder  of  Sheol,  therefore, 
appears  to  be  especially  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  im- 
pious and  to  be  not  only  dusty  but  to  be  also  without 
water,  or  at  most  furnishing  u  roily  water," — in  any 
event  a  place  of  thirst. 


50  BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 

In  the  Book  of  Job  (xxiv.  18) ,  which  appears  to  be 
extremely  conversant  with  Babylonian  modes  of  thought, 
we  find  comparisons  drawn  between  the  arid,  waterless 
desert  which  is  reserved  for  those  that  have  sinned,  and 
the  garden  with  fresh,  clear  water  which  is  reserved  for 
the  pious.  And  in  the  New  Testament,  which  has  most 
curiously  amalgamated  this  sentiment  with  the  last  verse 
of  the  Book  of  Isaiah,  we  read  of  a  flaming  hell  in  which 
the  rich  man  languishes  from  want  of  water,  and  of  a 
garden  (for  that  is  the  meaning  of  Paradise)  full  of  fresh, 
clear  water  for  Lazarus. 

And  the  pictures  which  painters  and  poets,  theo- 
logians and  priests,  and  last  of  all  Mahomet  the  prophet, 
have  drawn  of  this  Hell  and  this  Paradise,  are  well 
known. 

Behold  yonder  poor  Moslem,  sick  and  feeble,  who  on 
account  of  his  weakness  has  been  abandoned  by  the  cara- 
van in  the  desert.  A  jug  filled  with  water  is  by  his  side. 
With  his  own  hands  he  digs  his  shallow  grave  in  the  des- 
ert sands,  resignedly  awaiting  his  death.  His  eyes  are 
aglow  with  expectation,  for  in  a  few  moments  angels  will 
issue  from  the  open  portals  of  Paradise  and  greet  him 
with  the  words:  lt  Selam  'a/aika,  thou  hast  been  a  god- 
fearing man ;  enter  therefore  for  all  eternity  the  garden 
that  Allah  has  prepared  for  his  own." 

The  garden  stretches  before  him  like  the  vast  ex- 
panse of  heaven  and  earth.  Luxuriant  groves  casting 
plentiful  shadows  and  laden  with  sweet  fruits  are  inter- 
sected in  all  directions  with  babbling  brooks  and  dotted 
with  bubbling  springs ;  while  aerial  bowers  rise  from  the 
banks    of   the    streams.      Paradisian    glory    suffuses    the 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


51 


countenances  of  the  beatified  ones,  who  are  filled  with 
happiness  and  serenity.  They  wear  green  brocaded  gar- 
ments made  of  the  finest  silk ;  their  arms  are  adorned 
with  gold  and  silver  spangles ;  they  lie  on  couches  with 
lofty  bolsters  and  soft  pillows,  and  at  their  feet  are 
thick  carpets.  So  they  rest, 
seated  opposite  one  another 
at  richly -furnished  tables 
which  offer  them  everything 
their  hearts  desire.  Brim- 
ming goblets  go  the  rounds, 
and  youths  endowed  with 
immortality  and  resembling 
scattered  pearls  carry  silver 
beakers  and  crystal  vessels 
filled  with  Main,  the  most 
delicious  and  clearest  water 
from  the  spring  Tasnim, 
from  which  the  archangels 
drink,  redolent  with  cam- 
phor and  ginger.  And  this 
water  is  mixed  with  the 
rarest  old  wine,  of  which 
one  can  drink  as  much  as 
one  pleases,  for  it  does  not 
inebriate  and  causes  no  headaches. 

And  then  there  are  the  maidens  of  Paradise  !  Maidens 
with  skin  as  soft  and  delicate  as  the  ostrich  egg,  with 
voluptuous  bosoms,  and  with  eyes  like  glittering  pearls 
concealed  in  shells  of  oysters, — gazelle-like  eyes  full  of 
chaste   but   enrapturing  glances.     Two   and   seventy   of 


Fig.  48.     Assyrian  Angel. 

Type  representing  manly  strength  and 

intelligence.    (Bas-relief  of  Kuyunjik. 

Lenormant,   IV.,  pp.  432-433.) 


52 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


these  Paradisian  maidens  may  every  god-fearing  man 
choose  unto  himself,  in  addition  to  the  wives  that  he  pos- 
sessed on  earth,  provided  he  cares  to  have  them  (and  the 
good  man  will  always  cherish  desire  for  the  good) .  All 
hatred  and  envy  has  departed  from  the  breasts  of  the  de- 
vout ones;  no  gossip,  no  slander,  is  heard  in  Paradise. 
11  Selam,  Selam/"  everywhere;   and  all  utterances  con- 


Fig.  49.     Angels  with  Eagle  Heads. 
The  Holy  Tree  in  the  Centre.     (British  Museum.) 


elude  with  the  ringing  words :  el-hamdu  lillahi  rabbi-l- 
' ] alamin,  the  praise  is  the  Lord's,  the  master  of  all  crea- 
tures. 

This  is  the  culminating  point  in  the  development  of 
that  simple  and  unpretentious  Babylonian  conception  of 
the  crystal-clear  water  which  god-fearing  men  were  des- 
tined to  drink  in  Sheol.     And  these  conceptions  of  the 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


53 


torments  of  Hell  and  of  the  blissful  pleasures  of  Paradise 
to-day  sway  the  hearts  of  untold  millions. 

It  is  well-known,  also,  that  the  conceptions  of  the 
messengers  of  the  gods,  or  of  the  angels,  with  which  the 
Egyptians  were  utterly  unacquainted,  are  characteristi- 
cally Babylonian,  and  also  that  the  conception  of  cheru- 


Wm 


Fig.  50.     Winged  Cherub,  with  Body  of  Bull  and  Human  Head 
(After  Layard.) 

bim  and  seraphim  and  of  the  guardian  angels  that  watch 
over  the  ways  of  men  had  its  origin  in  Babylon.  The 
Babylonian  rulers  stood  in  need  of  hosts  of  messengers 
to  bear  their  behests  into  all  quarters  of  their  dominions ; 
and  so  also  their  gods  were  obliged  to  have  at  their  beck 


54 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


and  call  legions  of  messengers  or  angels, — messengers 
with  the  intelligence  of  men,  and  therefore  having  the 
form  of  men,  but  at  the  same  time  equipped  with  wings, 
in  order  to  be  able  to  carry  through  the  winds  of  heaven 
the  commands  of  the  gods  to  the  inhabitants  of  earth ;  in 
addition,  these  angels  were  invested  with  the  keenness  of 
vision  and  the  rapidity  of  flight  of  the  eagle  ;   and  to  those 


Fig.  50a.     Winged  Cherub,  with  Body  of  Lion  and  Human  Head 
(After  Layard.) 

whose  chief  office  it  was  to  guard  the  entrance  to  their 
divine  masters  was  imparted  the  unconquerable  strength 
of  the  bull,  or  the  awe-inspiring  majesty  of  the  lion. 
(Figs.  48,  49,  50,  and  50a.) 

The  Babylonian  and  Assyrian  angels,  like  those  in 
EzekieFs  vision,  are  very  often  of  hybrid  shape.  Take, 
for  example,  the  cherubim  of  which  a  type  is  given  in 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


55 


Fig.  50,  with  their  wings,  their  bull's  bodies,  and  their 
honest,  serious  human  countenances.  Then  again  we 
find  types  like  that  discovered  in  the  palace  of  Ashurna- 
zirpal  (Fig.  51) ,  which  bears  the  closest  possible  resem- 
blance to  our  conception  of  angels.  These  noble  and 
radiant  figures,  which  art  has  rendered  so  attractive  and 
familiar  in  our  eyes,  will  always  retain  a  kindly  place  in 
our  hearts. 


Fig.  51.     Angels  with  Human  Heads. 
(Noble  types  closely  resembling  the  Christian  conception  of  angels.) 

But  the  demons  and  the  devils,  whether  they  take 
for  us  the  form  of  the  enemies  of  man  or  that  of  the 
primordial  foes  of  God, — to  these  we  were  destined  to  bid 
farewell  for  all  eternity,  for  the  ancient  Persian  dualism 
was  not  after  our  hearts.  "  I  form  the  light  and  create 
darkness :  I  make  peace  and  create  evil :  it  is  /,  Yahveh, 
that  do  all  these  things."     So  justly  declares  the  greatest 


56 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


prophet  of  the  Old  Testament,  Isaiah  (xlv.  7) .  Demons 
like  that  represented  in  Fig.  52,— though  such  pictures 
are  not  without  interest  for  the  history  of  duelling,— or 
caricatures  like  that  represented  in  Fig.  53,  may  be  corn- 


Fig.  52.     Duel  of  Lion-Headed  and  Eagle-Footed  Demons. 
(British  Museum.     After  Lenormant.) 

mitted  forever  and  aye  to  the  obscurity  of  the  Babylonian 
hills  from  which  they  have  risen.      (See  also  Fig.  54.) 

In  his  excavations  at  Khorsabad,  Victor  Place  dis- 
covered the  supply-depot  of  the  palace  of  Sargon.  One 
of  the  store-rooms  contained  pottery  of  all  sorts  and  sizes, 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


57 


and  another  utensils  and  implements  made  of  iron.  Here 
were  found  arranged  in  beautiful  order  abundant  supplies 
of  chains,  nails,  plugs,  mattocks,  and  hoes,  and  the  iron 
had  been  so  admirably  wrought  and  was  so  well  preserved 
that  it  rang  like  a  bell  when  struck ;  and  some  of  these 
implements  which  were  then  twenty-five  centuries  old 
could  be  forthwith  put  into 
actual  use  by  the  Arabian 
workmen. 

This  drastic  intrusion  of 
Assyrian  antiquity  upon  our 
own  days  naturally  fills  us 
with  amazement,  and  yet  it  is 
nothing  more  than  what  has 
happened  in  the  intellectual 
domain.  When  we  distinguish 
the  twelve  signs  of  the  zodiac 
and  call  them  Aries,  Taurus, 
Gemini,  etc.  (see  Fig.  55) , 
when  we  divide  the  circle  into 
360  parts,  the  hour  into  60 
minutes,  and  the  minute  into 
60  seconds,  and  so  on, — in  all 
this,  Sumerian  and  Babylo- 
nian civilisation  still  lives  with  us  to-day. 

And  possibly  I  have  also  been  successful  in  my  en- 
deavor to  show  that  many  Babylonian  features  still  cling, 
through  the  medium  of  the  Bible,  to  our  religious  think- 
ing. 

The  elimination  from  our  religious  thought  of  the 
purely  human  conceptions  derived  from  these  admittedly 


Fig.  53.   Babylonian  Devil. 

Demon  of  the  Southwest  Wind. 

(Louvre.     After  Smith.) 


58 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


talented  peoples,  and  the  liberation  of  our  thought  gen- 
erally from  the  shackles  of  deep-rooted  prejudices,  will  in 
no  wise  impair  true  religion  and  the  true  religious  spirit, 
as  these  have  been  taught  us  by  the  prophets  and  poets 
of  the  Old  Testament,  but  most  sublimely  of  all  by 
Jesus ;   on  the  contrary,  both  will  come  forth  from  this 


■&£$&#  :M¥?i^^mz®&^ 


Fig.  54.     A  Demon  Supporting  a  Tablet.1 
(Assyrian  bronze  tablet.     After  Lenormant.) 

process  of  purification  far  truer  and  far  more  intensified 
than  ever  they  were  before. 

I  may  be  allowed  finally  a  word  with  regard  to  the 
feature  that  invests  the  Bible  with  its  main  significance 

1  The  two  upper  horizontal  strips  in  the  left-hand  side  of  the  figure  represent 
the  heavens  (the  celestial  bodies  and  the  celestial  genii).  The  third  strip  exhibits 
a  funeral  scene  on  earth.  The  fourth  strip  represents  the  Underworld  bathed  in 
the  floods  of  the  ocean. 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


59 


from  the  point  of  view  of  general  history, — its  monothe- 
ism. Here  too  Babel  early  opened  a  new  and  undreamt-of 
prospect. 

It  is  remarkable,  but  no  one  can  definitely  say  what 
our  Teutonic  word  God  originally  signified.  Philologists 
vacillate  between  "inspiring  timidity"  and  "delibera- 
tion."    But  the  word  which  the  Semitic  Canaanite  races, 


F'g-  55-     Sagittarius  and  Scorpio. 
Signs  of  the  Zodiac,  as  represented  by  the  Babylonians.     (Lenormant,  V.,  p.  1S0.) 

to  whom  the  Babylonians  are  most  nearty  related  and 
from  whom  the  Israelites  afterward  sprang,  coined  for 
God,  is  not  only  lucid  as  to  its  meaning,  but  conceives 
the  notion  of  divinity  under  so  profound  and  exalted  a 
form  that  this  word  alone  suffices  to  shatter  the  legend 
that  "the  Semites  were,  time  out  of  mind,  amazingly 
deficient  in  religious  instinct;  "   while  it  also  refutes  the 


60  BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 

popular  modern  conception  that  the  religion  of  Yahveh, 
and  therefore  also  our  Christian  belief  in  God,  is  ulti- 
mately sprung  from  a  species  of  fetishism  and  animism 
such  as  is  common  among  the  South  Sea  cannibals  or  the 
inhabitants  of  Tierra  del  Fuego. 

There  is  a  remarkably  beautiful  passage  in  the  Ko- 
ran, VI,  75  et  seq.,  which  so  fascinated  Goethe  that  he 
expressed  the  desire  to  see  it  dramatised.  Mahomet  has 
mentally  put  himself  in  the  place  of  Abraham,  and  is 
endeavoring  to  realise  the  manner  in  which  Abraham  had 
reached  the  monotheistic  idea.  He  says:  "And  when 
the  gloom  of  night  had  fallen,  Abraham  stepped  forth 
into  the  darkness;  and  behold,  there  was  a  star  shining 
above  him.  Then  he  cried  out  in  his  gladness  :  '  This  is 
my  Lord!  '  But  when  the  star  grew  dim,  he  said:  'I 
love  not  those  that  grow  dim.'  And  when  the  moon  rose 
radiantly  in  the  firmament,  he  cried  out  in  exceeding 
gladness  :  '  This  is  my  Lord  !  '  But  when  it  set,  he  said  : 
'Alas,  I  shall  surely  be  one  of  the  people  that  must  needs 
err.'  But  when  the  sun  rose  dazzlingly  in  the  morning, 
he  said:  'This  is  my  Lord,  this  is  the  greatest  of  all!  ' 
But  when  the  sun  set,  then  he  said:  'O,  my  people, 
verily  I  am  rid  of  your  idolatry  of  many  gods,  and  I  lift 
up  my  countenance  to  him  alone  that  created  the  heavens 
and  the  earth . '  " 

That  ancient  Semitic  word  for  God,  so  well  known 
to  us  from  the  sentence,  Eli  Eli  lama  azabtani,  is  El, 
and  its  meaning  is  the  goal ;  the  goal  toward  which  are 
directed  the  eyes  of  all  men  that  look  Heavenward  only, 
"which  every  man  sees,  which  every  man  beholds  from 
afar"  (Job  xxxvi.  25)  ;  the  goal  to  which  man  stretches 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


61 


forth  his  hands,  for  which  the  human  heart  longs  as  its 
release  from  the  uncertainties  and  imperfections  of  this 
earthly  life, — this  goal  the  ancient  Semitic  nomads  called 
El,  or  God.  And  inasmuch  as  there  can  in  the  nature  of 
things  be  only  one  goal,  we  find  among  the  old  Canaanite 
races  which  settled  in  Babylonia  as  early  as  2500  3^ears 
before  Christ,  and  to  whom  Hammurabi  himself  be- 
longed, such  beautiful  proper  names  as  "God  hath 
given,"  "  God  be  with  thee,"  "With  the  help  of  my  God 
I  go  my  way,"  etc. 


Sfi: 


Fig.  56.    Clay  Tablets  Containing  the  Words  "  Yahveh  is  God. 
(Time  of  Hammurabi  or  Amraphel.     British  Museum.) 


But  more !  Through  the  kindness  of  the  director  of 
the  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  department  of  the  British 
Museum  I  am  able  to  show  you  here  pictures  of  three 
little  clay  tablets  (Fig.  56).  What,  will  be  asked,  is  to 
be  seen  on  these  tablets,  fragile  broken  pieces  of  clay, 
with  scarcely  legible  characters  scratched  on  their  sur- 
face? True  enough,  but  they  are  valuable  from  the  fact 
that  their  date  may  be  exactly  fixed  as  that  of  the  time  of 
Hammurabi,  one  of  them  having  been  made  during  the 
reign  of  his  father,  Sin-muballit ;  but  still  more  so  from 


62  BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 

the  circumstance  that  they  contain  three  names  which 
are  of  the  very  greatest  significance  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the   history  of   religion.     The}'   are   the   words: 

6^1  sfij  4-  »f 

la-    ah-     ve-      ilu 

la-  kit-  um-  Hit 
Yahveh  is  God.  Yahveh,  the  Abiding  One,  the  Perma- 
nent One  (for  such  is,  as  we  have  reason  to  believe,  the 
significance  of  the  name),  who,  unlike  man,  is  not  to- 
morrow a  thing  of  the  past,  but  one  that  endures  forever, 
that  lives  and  labors  for  all  eternity  above  the  broad,  re- 
splendent, law-bound  canopy  of  the  stars, — it  was  this 
Yahveh  that  constituted  the  primordial  patrimony  of 
those  Canaanite  tribes  from  which  centuries  afterward 
the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel  sprang. 

The  religion  of  the  Canaanite  tribes  that  emigrated 
to  Babylonia  rapidly  succumbed,  indeed,  before  the  poly- 
theism that  had  been  practised  for  centuries  by  the  an- 
cient inhabitants  of  that  country.  But  this  polytheism 
by  no  means  strikes  an  uns3mipathetic  chord  in  us,  at 
least  so  far  as  its  conception  of  its  gods  is  concerned,  all 
of  whom  were  living,  omnipotent,  and  omnipresent  be- 
ings that  hearkened  unto  the  prayers  of  men,  and  who, 
however  much  incensed  they  might  become  at  the  sins  of 
men,  were  always  immediately  ready  again  with  offers  of 
mercy  and  reconciliation.  And  likewise  the  representa- 
tions which  these  deities  found  in  Babylonian  art,  as  for 
instance  that  of  the  sun-god  of  Sippar  enthroned  in  his 
Holy  of  Holies  (Fig.  57)'  are  far  removed  from  every - 

1  See  also  Fig.  31. 


Fig-  57'     The  Sun-God  of  Sippar  Enthroned  in  His  Holy  of  Holies. 
(Lenormant,  V.,  p.  301.) 


64 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 


thing  that  savors  of  the  ugly,  the  ignoble,  or  the  gro- 
tesque. The  Prophet  Ezekiel  (chap,  i.)  in  his  visions  of 
his  Lord  saw  God  enter  on  a  living  chariot  formed  of  four 
winged  creatures  with  the  face  of  a  man,  a  lion,  an  ox, 
and  an  eagle,  and  on  the  heads  of  these  cherubim  he  saw 
(x.  1)  a  crystal  surface  supporting  a  sapphire  throne  on 
which  God  was  seated  in  the  likeness  of  a  man,  bathed  in 
the  most  resplendent  radiance.      Noting  carefully  these 


i s 


Fig.  58.     Babylonian  Cylinder-Seal  with  Representation 
Resembling  the  Vision  of  Ezekiel. 

details,  can  we  fail  to  observe  the  striking  resemblance 
which  his  vision  presents  to  the  representation  of  a  god 
which  has  been  found  on  a  very  ancient  Babylonian  cyl- 
inder-seal (Fig.  58)  ?  Standing  on  an  odd  sort  of  vessel, 
the  prow  and  stern  of  which  terminate  in  seated  human 
figures,  may  be  seen  two  cherubim  with  their  backs  to 
each  other  and  with  their  faces,  which  are  human  in  form, 


BABEL  AND  BIBLE.  65 

turned  to  the  front.  Their  attitude  leads  us  to  infer  that 
there  are  two  corresponding  figures  at  the  rear.  On  their 
backs  reposes  a  surface,  and  on  this  surface  stands  a 
throne  on  which  the  god  sits,  bearded  and  clothed  in  long 
robes,  with  a  tiara  on  his  head,  and  in  his  right  hand 
what  are  apparently  a  scepter  and  a  ring :  and  behind  the 
throne,  standing  ready  to  answer  his  beck  and  call,  is  a 
servitor  of  the  god,  who  may  be  likened  to  the  man 
"clothed  with  linen"  (Ezekiel  ix.  3,  and  x.  2)  that  exe- 
cuted the  behests  of  Yahveh. 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  however,  and  despite  the 
fact  that  many  liberal  and  enlightened  minds  openly  ad- 
vocated the  doctrine  that  Nergal  and  Nebo,  that  the 
moon-god  and  the  sun-god,  the  god  of  thunder  Ramman, 
and  all  the  rest  of  the  Babylonian  Pantheon  were  one  in 
Marduk,  the  god  of  light,  still  polytheism,  gross  poly- 
theism, remained  for  three  thousand  years  the  Babylonian 
state  religion, — a  sad  and  significant  warning  against  the 
indolence  of  men  and  races  in  matters  of  religion,  and 
against  the  colossal  power  which  may  be  acquired  by  a 
strongly  organised  priesthood  based  upon  it. 

Even  the  religion  of  Yahveh,  under  the  magic  stand- 
ard of  which  Moses  united  into  a  single  nation  the  twelve 
nomadic  tribes  of  Israel,  remained  infected  for  centuries 
with  all  manner  of  human  infirmities, — with  all  the  un- 
sophisticated anthropomorphic  conceptions  that  are  char- 
acteristic of  the  childhood  of  the  human  race,  with  Israel- 
itic  particularism,  with  heathen  sacrificial  customs,  and 
with  the  cult  of  legal  externalities.  Even  its  intrinsic 
worth  was  impotent  to  restrain  the  nation  from  worship- 
ping the  Baal  and  the  Astarte  of  the  indigenous  Canaan- 


66  BABEL  AND  BIBLE. 

ite  race,  until  those  titanic  minds,  the  prophets,  discov- 
ered in  Yahveh  the  god  of  the  universe,  and  pleaded  for 
a  quickening  of  the  inner  spirit  of  religion  with  exhorta- 
tions like  that  of  Joel,  "  to  rend  their  hearts  and  not  their 
garments,"  and  until  the  divinely  endowed  singers  of  the 
Psalms  expressed  the  concepts  of  the  prophetic  leaders  in 
verses  which  awaken  to  this  day  a  living  echo  in  the 
hearts  of  all  nations  and  times, — until,  in  fine,  the  proph- 
ets and  the  psalmists  paved  the  way  for  the  adhortation 
of  Jesus  to  pray  to  God  in  spirit  and  truth  and  to  strive 
by  dint  of  individual  moral  endeavor  in  all  spheres  of  life 
after  higher  and  higher  perfection, — after  that  perfection 
which  is  our  Father's  in  Heaven. 


THE    OPEN    COURT    PUBLISHING    CO.,    CHICAGO. 


History  of  Religion,  and  Oriental  Works 


History  of  the  People  of  Israel 

From   the   Earliest  Times    to   the  Destruction    of  Jerusalem  by  the   Romans.      By  Prof. 
C.  H.  Cornill,   of  the    University  of  Breslau,   Germany.      Translated  by   Prof.  W.  H. 
Carruth.      Pages,  325 — vi.      Cloth,  $1.50  (7s.  6d.).      A  fascinating  portrayal  of  Jewish 
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mended by  both  orthodox  and  unorthodox. 
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Hartford  Seminary  Record. 

"Many  attempts  have  been  made  since  Old  Testament  criticism  settled  down  into  a  science,  to  write  the  history  of  Israel 
popularly.  Aud  some  of  these  attempts  are  highly  meritorious,  especially  Kittel's  and  Kent's.  But  Cornill  has  been 
most  successful.  His  book  is  smallest  and  it  is  easiest  to  read.  He  has  the  master  faculty  of  seizing  the  essential  and 
passing  by  the  accidental.  His  style  (especially  as  freely  translated  into  English  by  Professor  Carruth  of  Kansas)  is  pleas- 
ing and  restful.  Nor  is  he  excessively  radical.  If  Isaac  and  Ishmael  are  races,  Abraham  is  an  individual  still.  And 
above  all,  he  has  a  distinct  heroic  faith  in  the  Divine  mission  of  Israel."— The  Expository  Times. 

Geschichte  des  Volkes  Israels 

Von  den  aelteften  Zeiten  bis  zur  Zerftoerung  Jerusalem's  durch  die  Roemer.  In  zehn 
Vortraegen  fuer  gebildete  Laien  gefchildert.  Von  Carl  Heinrich  Cornill,  der  Philoiophie 
und  Theologie  Doctor,  ordentlichem  Profeffor  der  Theologie  an  der  Koenigl.  Univer- 
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This  book  is  the  German  original  of  the  preceding  "History  of  the  People  of  Israel  "  Apart  from  its  value  to  German 
readers,  it  forms  an  excellent  companion-piece  to  the  foregoing  admirable  translation  for  English  persons  studying  German. 

The  Prophets  of  Israel 

By  Prof.  Carl  Heinrich  Cornill.  Frontispiece,  Michael  Angelo's  Moses.  Cloth,  with 
the  Hebrew  title  stamped  on  the  cover  in  gold.  Fourth  edition.  Pages,  210. 
$1.00  net    (5s.). 

"Dr.  Cornill's  fascination  and  charm  of  style  loses  nothing  in  this  excellent  translation."— The  Week,  Toronto. 

"Admirably  simple  and  lucid; intensely  interesting.     The  reader  understands  the  prophets  and  appreciates  their 

lasting  contribution  to  Israel's  religion  and  to  humanity,  as  doubtless  he  never  did  before.    -Rabbi  Joseph  Stolz  in  The 

Reform  Advocate. 

The  Rise  of  the  People  of  Israel 

By    Prof.  Carl    Heinrich    Cornill.       Cloth,  50   cents   net  (2s.  6d.).       In    Epitomes    of 
Three  Sciences. 

-  'The  human  touch  is  never  lacking,  and  the  history  is  actually  alive.  .    A  lucid  and  «<^t»W  £££""7 

in  the  light  of  recent  investigation.    .    .    .    There  can  be  only  commendation  and  approval.    -The  Chnstian  Register. 

The  Legends  of  Genesis 

By  Dr.  Hermann  Gunkel,  Professor  of  Old  Testament  Theology  in  the  University  of 
Berlin.     Translated  by  W.  H.  Carruth.      Pages,  16+.     Cloth,  fi.oo  net  (4s.  6d.  net). 

This  work  contains  the  very  latest  results  of  the  new  scientific  investigation  of  Genesis,  in  the  light  of  analytical  and  com- 
parative  mythology. 

21 


THE    OPEN    COURT    PUBLISHING    CO.,    CHICAGO. 


The  Serpent  and  the  Tree  of  Life 

(Babylonian  Cylinder). 

From  Cams'  History  of  the  Devil. 


History  of  Religion,  and  Oriental  Works— Continued 
The  History  of  the  Devil 

And   the   Idea  of  Evil  from   the  Earliest  Times 

to    the    Present    Day.       By    Dr,    Paul   Carus. 

Printed  in  two  colors  from  large  type  on  fine 

paper.      Bound  in  cloth,  illuminated  with  cover 

stamp   from    Dore'.      Five  hundred    8vo  pages, 

with  311  illustrations  in  black  and  tint.     Price, 

$6.00  (30s.). 
Beginning  with  pre-historic  Devil-worship  and  the  adoration  of 
demon  gods  and  monster  divinities,  the  author  surveys  the  beliefs  of 
the  Summero-Accadians,  the  Persians,  the  Jews,  the  Brahmans, 
the  Buddhists,  the  early  Christians  and  the  Teutonic  nations.  He 
then  passes  to  the  demonology  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Reformation,  and  Modern  times,  discussing  the  Inquisition, 
witchcraft  and  the  history  of  the  Devil  in  verse  and  fable.  The  philosophical  treatment  of  the  subject  is  comparative! 
brief,  but  the  salient  points  are  clearly  indicated  in  every  connection. 

"It  is  seldom  that  a  more  intensely  absorbing  study  of  .his  kind  has  been  made,  and  it  can  be  safely  asserted  that  the  sub- 
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this  book,  tor  it  is  a  well  of  information  upon  a  subject  fascinating  to  both  students  and  casual  readers.  "-Chicago  Israelite. 

Solomon  and  Solomonic  Literature 

By  Moncure  D.  Conway.      Pages,  viii,  243.      Cloth,  $1.50  net  (6s.). 
Portrays  the  entire  evolution  of  the  Solomonic  legend  in  the  history  of  Judaism,  Christianity,  Hinduism,  Buddhism,  and 
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The  Book  of  the  Dead 

An  English  Translation  of  the  Chapters,  Hymns,  etc.,  of  the  Theban  Recension,  with  Intro- 
duction, Notes,  etc.  By  E.  A.  Wallis  Budge,  M.  A.,  Litt.  D.,  D.  Lit.,  Keeper  of  the 
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Martin  Luther 

By  Gustav  Freytag.  Now  translated  for  the  first  time 
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English  Secularism,  A  Confession  of  Belief 

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Buddhism  and  Its  Christian  Critics 

By  Dr.  Paul  Carus.      Pages,  311.      $1.25  (6s.  66..). 

CrST^3-S!  Thxf  ?^n  °f  Buddhism?  The  Philosophy  of  Buddhism;  The  Psychological  Problem;   The  Basic  Concepts 
or  buddhism:  Buddhism  and  Christianity;  Christian  Critics  of  Buddhism. 

"Every  religious  man  should  study  other  religions  in  order  to  understand  his  own  religion;  and  he  must  try  to  trace 
scienfjously  and  lovingly  the  similarities  in  the  various  faiths  in  order  to  acquire  the  key  that  will  unlock  to  him  th 
of  the  religious  evolution  of  mankind." — From  the  Author's  Preface, 


con- 

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Chinese-English.        With   Introduction,   Transliteration,      ,j£     T.     &*    ^t5f     Jfiiii 
and  Notes.      By  Dr.  Paul  Carus.      With  a  photograv-      ^ti»       J       3§<    M^    *|bc 

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Acvaghosha's  Discourse  on  the  Awakening 
of  Faith  in  the  Mahay  an  a 

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The  Gospel  of  Buddha 

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Das  Evangelium  Buddhas  *TO  ^Ttj  Hi5T%  II 

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form  have    appeared,  and  M.  Hue's   story  remains  among   the   best  sources  of  information   concerning  the  Thibetans  and 

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50  cents  net  (2s.  6d.). 
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26 


